Facilitating the Energy Transition—The Governance Role of Local Renewable Energy Cooperatives

Donné Wagemans*, Christian Scholl, Veronique Vasseur

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    The governance role of local renewable energy cooperatives (LRECs) in facilitating the energy transition remains under-scrutinized in the scholarly literature. Such a gap is puzzling, since LRECs are a manifestation of the current decentralization movement and yield a promising governance contribution to a ‘just energy transition’. This paper presents a study of the governance roles of LRECs in the province of Limburg, the Netherlands. Building on existing work on the cooperative movement and energy governance, we, first, develop a conceptual framework for our analysis. The framework is built around three key interactions shaping these governance roles, between (1) LRECs and their (potential) members, (2) LRECs and the government and (3) LRECs with
    other LRECs. The results of an online survey and qualitative interviews with selected cooperatives led to the identification of five key governance roles that these cooperatives take up in the facilitation of the energy transition: (1) mobilizing the public, (2) brokering between government and citizens,
    (3) providing context specific knowledge and expertise, (4) initiating accepted change and (5) proffering the integration of sustainability. The paper concludes by reflecting on the relevance of our findings in this Dutch case for the broader ‘just transition’ movement.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number4171
    Number of pages20
    JournalEnergies
    Volume12
    Issue number21
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2019

    Keywords

    • energy transition
    • local renewable energy cooperatives
    • governance roles
    • citizen participation
    • mixed methods
    • COMMUNITY ENERGY
    • POWER
    • INITIATIVES
    • PEOPLE

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